KyzrSoze
11-19-2005, 12:40 AM
ZINGERS FROM MURRAY
McLaren's departed design star talks about his canned 'baby' and life with Mercedes.
BY WALLACE WYSS
October 2005
That on-again, off-again "baby McLaren" project (code-named P8) with Mercedes-Benz is apparently off again-if we want to believe the man who designed the worldbeater McLaren F1 supercar in the mid-1990s.
Gordon Murray, the one-time enfant terrible of the Grand Prix circus who began designing race cars in his early 20s and penned winners for Brabham and McLaren, says the deal is off, even though he hasn't had a key to the building of the British race-car builder since last November, when he bowed out after more than 18 years.
Just a few years ago, Mercedes was heavily involved in making McLaren its boutique supercar supplier. So fans of powerful, cost-is-no-object sports cars must certainly be sorry that Murray, now in his 60s, has left the fold, because all were hoping for a reprise of his incomparable McLaren F1 road car, a 239-mph three-seater that sold for a cool million. McLaren planned 100 but sold 60.
A new reality is in the air since Mercedes got a frosty reception to its lavish SLR McLaren ($455,000), not to mention the slow-selling Maybach ($315,00 to $367,000). Turns out the air at over $300,000 is a whole lot thinner than Mercedes thought.
There's also a lot of buzz created by McLaren's hiring of American engineer Neil Hannemann, fresh from his winning Ford GT project and earlier work on the Dodge Viper. He replaces Murray. Some speculate that Hannemann's appointment might have something to do with the easy-on-the-eyes list price that Ford was able to attach to the window of the Ford GT supercar as it sailed out the factory door—$139,000, without options—suggesting that here was a guy who wouldn't create company-wide migraines with cost overruns.
We went to hear Murray speak recently at an Art Center College of Design event in Pasadena, a kind of birthing place for famous designers. In this company, Murray let loose with some humorous scorn for Mercedes' corporate understanding of engineering, strange as that sounds. He said that when Mercedes sent over its design for the SLR, "we had to move the engine back three feet." He said Mercedes officials couldn't fathom how one man—himself—could be in charge of so many things at McLaren. During the SLR's development, for example, he quoted conversations he had when Mercedes would telephone and ask him to send over this or that expert on the project to confer with the home office's engineers in Stuttgart.
In one call, Mercedes said it would need to meet with his aerodynamics expert, adding, "Now, who would that be?"
"That would be me," he replied.
A week later the company would call again. "Now we need to see your passive-safety expert. Who would that be?"
"I'm afraid that would be me," Murray would reply. And so on and so forth.
"Mercedes has become far too big to work efficiently", he said, and so has McLaren when it's in a partnership with such a big company.
Murray now works for himself and is designing a lightweight city car he claims could sell for half the price of the Mercedes Smart urban car. Could be a tough task for him, since his 40-year career has been largely spent designing cost-is-no-object race cars or road cars (excluding a Mini-based car at the start and a no-frills car, the Atom, more recently).
Murray promised to return to the sports-car genre only after this small-car project, which he is doing as a sort of one-man protest against the increasing size of cars. His sports car will most likely follow a similar path to the one he says McLaren canned—V-8, naturally aspirated, 200-mph top speed, targeting the Lamborghini Gallardo and Ferrari F430 niche.
There's a rumor that McLaren could zig while Murray zags, with the British firm switching to a front-engine configuration, sort of an SLK with SLR design cues, i.e., a baby SLR.
But front engines aren't au courant. Mercedes has two, maybe three reasons to keep the car mid-engined and put it back on the front burner again. Arch-rival Audi has already announced it will go forward with the Le Mans Quattro project, which the company can get out quickly by adapting the Gallardo frame that is made—guess where!—in an Audi plant. Second, Mercedes won't likely admit that it put the SLR's engine in the wrong place, even after an automaker so plebeian as Ford demonstrated how to produce an outstanding mid-engined car. So Mercedes will have to make one in order not to look technologically backward. Finally, Mercedes might like to show Murray that you don't need a diva to make a supercar. Mercedes has developed numerous successful racing and high-performance GTs through the decades using internal talent.
The reason the car was tabled the first time around was because the Mercedes governing board was reportedly disgruntled about tales of unreliability on the bread-and-butter Mercedes cars. So the engineering staff was punished and this particular toy taken away. It will be green-lighted as a Mercedes only if the reliability complaints go away. So, look for spy shots hinting at two different nose treatments: one with the three-pointed Mercedes star and one McLaren-badged.
Who are we betting on? Well, Mercedes has all the money, but you have to admit it's up against a legend. For instance, let's throw just one more fact at you about Murray's McLaren F1. He did it totally as a road car, but, out of curiosity, after it was in production, he developed a "Le Mans kit." And the car went on to take first overall in the 24-hour race in 1995. Not bad for a first-time design at Le Mans.
McLaren's departed design star talks about his canned 'baby' and life with Mercedes.
BY WALLACE WYSS
October 2005
That on-again, off-again "baby McLaren" project (code-named P8) with Mercedes-Benz is apparently off again-if we want to believe the man who designed the worldbeater McLaren F1 supercar in the mid-1990s.
Gordon Murray, the one-time enfant terrible of the Grand Prix circus who began designing race cars in his early 20s and penned winners for Brabham and McLaren, says the deal is off, even though he hasn't had a key to the building of the British race-car builder since last November, when he bowed out after more than 18 years.
Just a few years ago, Mercedes was heavily involved in making McLaren its boutique supercar supplier. So fans of powerful, cost-is-no-object sports cars must certainly be sorry that Murray, now in his 60s, has left the fold, because all were hoping for a reprise of his incomparable McLaren F1 road car, a 239-mph three-seater that sold for a cool million. McLaren planned 100 but sold 60.
A new reality is in the air since Mercedes got a frosty reception to its lavish SLR McLaren ($455,000), not to mention the slow-selling Maybach ($315,00 to $367,000). Turns out the air at over $300,000 is a whole lot thinner than Mercedes thought.
There's also a lot of buzz created by McLaren's hiring of American engineer Neil Hannemann, fresh from his winning Ford GT project and earlier work on the Dodge Viper. He replaces Murray. Some speculate that Hannemann's appointment might have something to do with the easy-on-the-eyes list price that Ford was able to attach to the window of the Ford GT supercar as it sailed out the factory door—$139,000, without options—suggesting that here was a guy who wouldn't create company-wide migraines with cost overruns.
We went to hear Murray speak recently at an Art Center College of Design event in Pasadena, a kind of birthing place for famous designers. In this company, Murray let loose with some humorous scorn for Mercedes' corporate understanding of engineering, strange as that sounds. He said that when Mercedes sent over its design for the SLR, "we had to move the engine back three feet." He said Mercedes officials couldn't fathom how one man—himself—could be in charge of so many things at McLaren. During the SLR's development, for example, he quoted conversations he had when Mercedes would telephone and ask him to send over this or that expert on the project to confer with the home office's engineers in Stuttgart.
In one call, Mercedes said it would need to meet with his aerodynamics expert, adding, "Now, who would that be?"
"That would be me," he replied.
A week later the company would call again. "Now we need to see your passive-safety expert. Who would that be?"
"I'm afraid that would be me," Murray would reply. And so on and so forth.
"Mercedes has become far too big to work efficiently", he said, and so has McLaren when it's in a partnership with such a big company.
Murray now works for himself and is designing a lightweight city car he claims could sell for half the price of the Mercedes Smart urban car. Could be a tough task for him, since his 40-year career has been largely spent designing cost-is-no-object race cars or road cars (excluding a Mini-based car at the start and a no-frills car, the Atom, more recently).
Murray promised to return to the sports-car genre only after this small-car project, which he is doing as a sort of one-man protest against the increasing size of cars. His sports car will most likely follow a similar path to the one he says McLaren canned—V-8, naturally aspirated, 200-mph top speed, targeting the Lamborghini Gallardo and Ferrari F430 niche.
There's a rumor that McLaren could zig while Murray zags, with the British firm switching to a front-engine configuration, sort of an SLK with SLR design cues, i.e., a baby SLR.
But front engines aren't au courant. Mercedes has two, maybe three reasons to keep the car mid-engined and put it back on the front burner again. Arch-rival Audi has already announced it will go forward with the Le Mans Quattro project, which the company can get out quickly by adapting the Gallardo frame that is made—guess where!—in an Audi plant. Second, Mercedes won't likely admit that it put the SLR's engine in the wrong place, even after an automaker so plebeian as Ford demonstrated how to produce an outstanding mid-engined car. So Mercedes will have to make one in order not to look technologically backward. Finally, Mercedes might like to show Murray that you don't need a diva to make a supercar. Mercedes has developed numerous successful racing and high-performance GTs through the decades using internal talent.
The reason the car was tabled the first time around was because the Mercedes governing board was reportedly disgruntled about tales of unreliability on the bread-and-butter Mercedes cars. So the engineering staff was punished and this particular toy taken away. It will be green-lighted as a Mercedes only if the reliability complaints go away. So, look for spy shots hinting at two different nose treatments: one with the three-pointed Mercedes star and one McLaren-badged.
Who are we betting on? Well, Mercedes has all the money, but you have to admit it's up against a legend. For instance, let's throw just one more fact at you about Murray's McLaren F1. He did it totally as a road car, but, out of curiosity, after it was in production, he developed a "Le Mans kit." And the car went on to take first overall in the 24-hour race in 1995. Not bad for a first-time design at Le Mans.